Vaccaro’s signature portrait style is evident in his collection of candids of notables, such as Georgia O’Keeffe (top), taken more than 45 years ago at her ranch in New Mexico; Alexander Calder (middle), amidst one of his mobiles; and a young Willem De Kooning.

Tony Vaccaro

When an exhibition of Tony Vaccaro’s work opens at the Georgia O’Keeffe
Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, later this year, it will complete the long
journey home of portraits Vaccaro shot of the famed painter at her ranch in
nearby Abiquiu more than 45 years ago.

The show, “O’Keeffe Illuminated: Photographs by Tony Vaccaro,” will
include some 30 candid images Vaccaro captured of O’Keeffe over a two-week
period in 1960, on assignment for LOOK magazine.

While the historical value of these rarely seen photos by the 83-year-old Vaccaro
is worth the price of admission alone, the real legacy is his signature portrait
style, which still has a contemporary look today.

Capturing fresh images of the notoriously stoic O’Keeffe—who had
already stood before the lenses of some the world’s most famous photographers—was
no easy feat. Rather than take the approach of previous shooters, who had her
simply pose in front of her famous paintings, Vaccaro was seeking something
more intimate.

For days, he discreetly trailed O’Keeffe at her ranch while she, at first,
completely ignored him as he snapped away. The frosty treatment was intentional.
O’Keeffe was peeved that LOOK hadn’t sent either photographer she
had requested: Ansel Adams or Richard Avedon. It was only after Vaccaro cooked
her steak Florentine and fettuccine Alfredo that she began to warm up to him.
Some of his best images of her, such as a playful shot of O’Keeffe looking
through the hole of a piece of Swiss cheese, were captured then.

In a recent interview with Studio Photography, Vaccaro explained the technique
and benefits of his “Bang Style,” which he developed in 1944 while
serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, and which is still imitated by
photographers today.
“When I shoot, I work with three cameras with lenses focused at three
different lengths—3 to 6 feet, 7 to 12 feet, and 12 feet to infinity—so
I don’t need to focus. I just pick the camera I want and when I see the
expression or feeling, ‘bang!’ I take the picture,” he explains. “What
you get when you use this style are emotions that are more enduring than composition
or technique. Keep it raw, keep it honest.”

Vaccaro would employ this style on many of his assignments for LOOK, LIFE,
Time, and other magazines, capturing timeless portraits of Pablo Picasso, Maria
Callas, Alexander Calder, Ursula Andress, Willem de Kooning, Frank Lloyd Wright,
and other notables.

A dedicated Leica M3 and M4 shooter, Vaccaro loves their “silence and
their smoothness.” His lighting setups are mostly natural light, but
with some use of strobes. “I use the strobes not to look like strobes
but to imitate natural light,” he says. “I prefer to shoot fast.
Most of the strobes are set at 1/500 or 1/1000 second. I always go for indirect
light because the light becomes very weak, and when it’s weak you can
keep your lenses wide open, so the images are always crisp.”

While his portraits have a timeless quality, Vaccaro is quite aware that the
negatives they were captured on do not, so he’s come up with a unique
method of storing them. After an incident where a cat fell asleep on glassine
envelopes and its body heat melted the wax of the glassine, ruining the negatives,
Vaccaro switched to rolling them in 100 percent cotton, acid-free paper from
Southworth, storing them in fireproof steel and cement cabinets.

Though his methodology for printing—all of which he does in a darkroom
in his apartment in Queens, New York—has remained largely the same, Vaccaro
has adapted to the changing times. He said he purchased the last box of Kodak
Professional Polymax Fine-Art B&W paper from B&H Photo in New York
late last year after Kodak discontinued the line. Since then, he’s made
a successful switch to Ilford Multigrade IV FB Fiber paper.

“The Kodak was a great paper. At one time it was the best,” Vaccaro
says. “But the Ilford is great, too. You just have to learn to adapt.”